


helpless as a chess piece

by hellsreluctantheir



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Use, Episode: s02e14 Born Under a Bad Sign, Episode: s07e17 The Born-Again Identity, Episode: s11e04 Baby, Episode: s13e22 Exodus, Gen, Medication, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Medication, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29170257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsreluctantheir/pseuds/hellsreluctantheir
Summary: He woke up face down on the bed, blinking into awareness, groggy and sick. The curtains were open. Dean was asleep. He remembered the taste of shitty, bottom-shelf bourbon. Remembered laughing with Dean in a way that felt more effortless than it had in years. Remembered spilling from the motel room to sit on the hood of the impala - the motel was a little too urban for them to really see the stars but they’d tried. Remembered… The rest of the night faded into something deep and dark and underwater.--A study of Sam Winchester and the liminality of self-medication.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	helpless as a chess piece

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes out of From A Balance Beam by Bright Eyes.

Sam swam to the surface through a dark ocean to find himself in Bobby’s house. Enough time to realise his throat was burning and his wrists were raw before Dean’s fist hit his face.

He apologised, later.

They both spent 48 hours twitchy around each other. Sam, running through a week and a half's worth of distorted, underwater memories. A hunter’s blood under his fingernails. The rapid tap of Jo’s heartbeat. The cold, sure patience when he’d been tied to the chair. When Meg had been tied to the chair, in him. Dean, watching him.

The anti-possession symbol around his neck became a touchstone.

Out of Bobby’s for a day, and Dean came back with two bottles of bourbon and a proclamation that they needed a break.

Sam, sick of the demon highlights reel in his brain, held out a glass.

He woke up face down on the bed, blinking into awareness, groggy and sick. The curtains were open. Dean was asleep. He remembered the taste of shitty, bottom-shelf bourbon. Remembered laughing with Dean in a way that felt more effortless than it had in years. Remembered spilling from the motel room to sit on the hood of the impala - the motel was a little too urban for them to really see the stars but they’d tried. Remembered… The rest of the night faded into something deep and dark and underwater.

Dean found him hunched over the toilet, knees to the cracked vinyl, still gagging even though nothing was coming up but ropey, acidic saliva. One hand braced on the toilet seat, one tight on the amulet around his neck. He cackled (too loud), clapped Sam on the back (too close), and said something about how Sam was going to want grease soon enough so he’d go get some grub (wrong). But Dean had to be right, it was just a hangover, so after fifteen more minutes of his diaphragm feeling like it was trying to rip it’s way through his skin he managed to get himself under control enough to sit down at the table. Another ten minutes and then Dean was crashing back through the door with his choice of burgers for breakfast. Not green around the gills like Sam - still clearly hungover enough to be squinting in the sunlight, sweating a bit more than normal.

He wasn’t right about Sam wanting the grease though - he picked sesame seeds off the bun until Dean pinned him with a look and he shoved the whole tray over towards his brother. “Really not up to food, Dean, you eat it.”

And Dean looked mildly concerned. But it was just a hangover so he shrugged and tugged the food the rest of the way, and Sam braced his hands on his thighs so Dean wouldn’t see them shaking.

—

Whatever they were pumping into him at the hospital was worse than what he’d taken in the back alley. Who knew a random plug in Indiana would be so nice. And the drug, it had pulled him under in a matter of minutes, deep down, too far to breathe. A comfortable darkness, at least until Lucifer yanked him out of it. Not-Lucifer. The Lucifer that lived in his head, both the devil and angel on his shoulder. An image that made him chuckle, humourlessly.

It was possible the sedatives weren’t treating him great.

Too groggy, every muscle too heavy. Even when he flinched at the fire crackers it was slow. Delayed, and Lucifer seemed to love that, seeing him so weary. Half underwater.

Not Lucifer. Not real.

Difficult to remember when the walls were swimming.

They left Cas behind, and Sam was still trembling from the electricity, still stuffed to the gills with drugs determined to pull his eyelids down and he didn’t- he didn’t want this to be something that was being done to him.

Dean said, “There’s a motel about twenty minutes away, lets go get you horizontal.”

And Sam said, “Can we- not yet. Can we get some coffee?” Dean wanted to argue, desperate in every line of his body, and Sam, raw and more open then he’d like, said, “Soon, just. Please?”

It wasn’t a research day, and Dean was not happy that he’d bought a triple red-eye but. It didn’t counteract the pills much. His bones still felt like concrete, like his own body was weighing him down. Just now his heartbeat was so fast it was fluttering, a butterfly crashing around within stone ribs.

They went to the motel. Sam sat at the table and pulled out his laptop, because it wasn’t like there wasn’t work to do. Hadn’t been able to do his work right in weeks, too tired, stuck in a fog he couldn’t think through. Was still in it, a little bit, even if Cas had cleared the worst. 

Guilt joined the swirl of benzo and caffeine that was already ruining his stomach.

He held out for another twelve hours, on food Dean went to fetch, on stale instant coffee sachets from his backpack because this motel didn’t have any, on sheer determination. The medication wasn’t out of his system, wouldn’t be for days. But the window of efficacy that- that had to have elapsed even if he couldn’t tell the difference anymore between the pills and his own, bone-deep exhaustion. But he saw Dean’s shoulders relax as he finally shuffled over to the bed. Didn’t even take his boots off before collapsing face down. The last thing he heard was the sound of the curtains being drawn.

—

Dean had thrown the purse he’d found in the impala into Sam’s chest with a scoffed, “Looks like it suits you more than me,” once they’d got back to the bunker. Rolled his shoulders as he’d walked away. But it wasn’t tense, things felt easy for once. Not the world, not with the darkness, not with the flashes of hell, not with that conversation with not-Dad. But between him and Dean, at least.

He rifled through the purse with the shame of someone who knew that he didn’t really need to anymore, and the instincts of someone who for a long time had picked up every penny he’d found on the street.

It was a handful of loose change and eight dollars in ratty bills. And, tucked into a side pocket, a pre-rolled joint.

A laugh snuck up on him, spilled out of his mouth with his head none-the-wiser. Some teenager in Quaker Valley had to be kicking themselves. Dean probably would’ve wanted it more than him. There was a flash back to Stanford, to picking a lock or two so he and Brady could sit on the roof of their dorm, Brady’s shitty Bic lighter burning their fingers. (“You need to relax,” Brady had said, to convince him, and Sam had laughed. “You realise you are, one hundred percent, the villain in a drug PSA right now.”) There were about five lighters in his room, and two in his pockets. Maybe a stupid decision, but sure. He needed to relax.

It snuck up on him.

First he was just relaxed. Sitting sprawled on his bed, loose in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Good. He felt good. Then the reality of the situation caught up with him - smoking up with the door to his room shut. The idea of Dean walking past and smelling the smoke creeping through under the door - it had always been Dean that found him on teen misadventures, never once dad. And Dean never had much room to criticise any misadventures, they’d both known the glass house he was living in, but that had never stopped him. The thought of being caught by his big brother smoking pot shut up in his room at the age of thirty-three set him off giggling uncontrollably. He felt _good_.

It felt like he’d been laughing for hours, grinning so hard his face ached, then his eyes slid to the clock and it had barely been any time at all.

There was only one place time moved like that, and suddenly his breath started to run short. Short but- but _long_ each inhale ragged, dragged through Sam’s throat like he was trying to breath salt water.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was the other, _other_ place, hunting again, just regular cases just. Just watching mile markers tick down the highway to make sure they’re all there, all in the right order - did he miss one because he looked over at Dean at the wrong moment or did he miss one because- because. Waiting for Crowley to step around a corner. _Poughkeepsie_.

No. No, Gadreel had been losing time, skipping across the surface of his life like a well-thrown stone, just dipping into the world for seconds at a time. This, this _drag_ was…

The tick of the clock sounded like the clink of chains.

There was a creak, somewhere in the bunker. Dean - he was the only other person there. Unless, _unless_ , and Sam’s eyes flicked back to the clock, to the time, when was the last time it had changed, it had been hours, upon hours, upon-

Dean didn’t come barging in after the smell.

Sam came down slowly to find himself flat on his back in the shadows and dust beneath his bed, hands braced with palms spread on the slats. Covered in cold sweat, shaking, maybe still hyperventilating a little bit. It felt like it had been a hundred years. It had been, maybe, a couple hours.

Slowly, he slid out from underneath the bed. Ran a hand through his hair - it came back streaked in grey. He needed to shower. Tried to avoid looking at himself in the mirror but he still saw - eyes bloodshot and swollen. Hands trembling.

Closed his eyes in the shower but the feeling of warm liquid coursing down his skin was too much, they flew back open to make sure it was running clear. Not red. 

—

Sam’s tolerance had really gone to shit, and since they were celebrating the slugs of whiskey Dean had been pouring into everyone’s glasses had been generous. Two drinks and he was slipping away. From the map room to the library. Back to the wall, back of the room, head to the hands, gaze fixed to a point to try and stop the spinning.

He hadn’t eaten much, either. Probably didn’t help.

If he threw up it was going to be all bile - a burn all the way up his throat, he’d be able to feel it tomorrow.

But he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t at that stage, just still at vaguely pleasant unreality.

As pleasant as unreality could be.

He swallowed, hard, against a flood of acid.

Someone had topped his glass up on his way out of the room - he wasn’t even sure who. A gesture of kindness. Of joy. With no concept of the edge Sam was teetering inches from. No reason for any of this crowd to know about any of that, like they wouldn’t know that the fancy crystal bottles the men of letters had left behind were full of bottom shelf liquor that was mostly shoplifted. Maybe Sam never broke the habit of picking up pennies, but Dean never broke the habit of slipping gas station booze into the side of his boot.

It was a bad decision but he tipped his head back and let whiskey, caustic like gasoline, cut through the bile.

Put the glass on the ground and tracked the time. Sitting down. Blood still thin - was it the vampire attack, or the hike, or… How many hours since he’d slept, or eaten a full meal. It took thirty minutes for the third glass to hit, solid, twisting his gut, making the room slip sideways a little. The room spinning enough that fixing his gaze didn’t help, but shutting his eyes made it worse.

A shock of pain made him realise he was digging his thumb into the scar on his palm, but this was self-inflicted, this drowsy, prickling illness in his gut. You didn’t find the devil at the bottom of a bottle of cheap booze, you just found the taste of your own fear and hate choking it’s way back up your throat.

Anyway, Lucifer was on the other side of a closed door. Who knew how long it would take for him to open it again, but Sam would hold onto every minute of it.

Another half hour had slid by unnoticed, he realised, with a sick lurch of his stomach.

Sat in the library. Sat underwater. He’d surface soon.

**Author's Note:**

> You can talk to me on [tumblr](https://hellsreluctantheir.tumblr.com/).


End file.
